7 Month Old ABSOLUTELY Refuses Bottle

When I decided to introduce the bottle at 5mths my son absolutely refused, at first. I hadn't had this problem with his big brother so I was very perplexed. Several tries, several types of nipples and bottles, and all he would do was chew on the nipple, he wouldn't latch on. First, be sure its the bottle she refuses not the contents. this applies if the bottle contains formula instead of breastmilk. Of ocourse the reverse could be true too. My son refused breastmilk in the bottle but finally took formula. For breastmilk he prefers it straight from the source. Also, I discovered that temp. was a factor at least for my son. He likes his bottles much warmer than I was heating them or that #1 ever wanted. This is true for a lot of breastfed babies. Breastmilk is usually body temp. (not room temp.) which can feel pretty warm to us. So Your sister may want to play with different temps for the bottle and see if that makes a difference.
When I was trying to get my son to latch on to the bottle I finally had to trick him. I sat with him like I was going to nurse with breast exposed and everything. I held the bottle up lining its nipple up with my own and kind of pressing the two together the best I could. When my son opened his mouth to latch on to me he actually got both in his mouth. Once he started sucking I eased my own nipple out. With the two in his mouth he couldn't actually get a seal around either to really latch on. It took him several seconds of active sucking on the bottle before he realized the substitution. When He let go of the bottle I repeated the trick. After about three tries he drunk about half the bottle and then refused to opened again. I did this at one feeding each day for several days. Eventually he would finish the bottle and then started taking it without me having to trick him. I guess once the feel on the rubber nipple was familiar to him.
Good Luck!

Your sister's milk just shouldn't dry up for no reason. A few things that could make her milk dry up would be pregnancy or some kind of illness or malnutrition, but otherwise, if she's been exclusively breastfeeding, the milk shouldn't be drying up out of nowhere.

Now, it is possible your sister is producing less milk because her daughter is now eating solids but that should be because overall the baby is needing less milk due to supplementation with solids. (Breastfeeding is a supply and demand system.)

The only other thing I can think of is if your sister is pumping a lot of milk, sometimes the parts can start to wear out and the breastpump won't pull as much milk out. The answer to that is to get new parts or a new breastpump.

To give her a temporary boost to her milk supply, she can also ask the doctor for a prescription for Reglan, which should help.

Also, if the baby is healthy, not underweight, and not dehydrated, your sister could likely be worried about nothing....if the baby is healthy, it would seem the baby is getting what she needs.

The reason that I am answering the question this way is because I am not sure that there is a way to make the baby take a bottle if she is determined not to. I am sure your sister has already tried different things like trying different bottles and nipples, trying to give it to her when she is sleepy, etc. The only thing I can think of that likely your sister hasn't tried is not giving the baby anything AT ALL until she takes the bottle. (May take more than a day, which is when most people cave, if they haven't before then.) I knew a friend who did this because the baby HAD to take a bottle and none of the other methods were working. I think she and the baby had two LONG, miserable days of it before it worked. But before I do that, I would double check with the pediatrician.

Hi A.,

I had the same problem with my kids when they were each 8 months old (and being weened). I tried every bottle, nipple and sippy imaginable. They both ended up with a straw-type cup. It was great and really convenient since you can get a straw almost anywhere. Keep trying something will work!

Good luck!

I weaned my children to a cup at 6 months. They now have the kind of sippy cup with the soft spout that when they chew on it, they get milk. This is a great beginning. They will eventually learn to suck on it. Chewing on it may be an indication that she is teething.

I fell into this problem with one of my boys. I had started out giving him one bottle a day - ideally for his dad to give it to him - to prepare him for when I would go back to work and be doing the breast pump and bottle routine. My husband went into the hospital for about 3 weeks and it was just too stressful to keep up the daily bottle on my own. For about three weeks after I went back to work, he refused the bottle, cried for hours and nearly cost our wonderful nanny her sanity. After one particularly frustrating session of refusing the bottle, I came home from work early to feed him myself. Instead of offering him the breast, I held him very snugly and offered the bottle - over and over and over again. He finally accepted it and finished the whole thing and that was his last resistance. I was able to wean him directly to a cup and regular dairy after he turned one. We stopped the final bed time nursing habit around 18 months and it was a very smooth transition. Best of luck.